It seems ironic, that in a life where so many of us have strived to be remembered, the real challenge, the greater subversion, is in fact the opposite: the right to be forgotten. And here in Australia, we don’t have the statutory right to erasure like they do in the EU, which means it’s pretty standard for private information about you to be easily found by third parties through search engines.
I googled ‘Mandy Nolan feet’. Someone has used my Facebook photos and put me on a wikifeet fetish page. This was done without my consent. But in this place, where consumption is king, consent is a mere curiosity. The very platforms that data rape us have slowly turned us into narcissists. We want privacy. But we also want to be seen. Even when we want protection we can’t stand the erasure.
I hoped I would be remembered for what I had done. Who I had loved. Whose lives I had touched. People I had impacted. But in reality, the world will remember me, like you, for our purchase history. For what we buy. What we don’t buy. What we look at. What we can’t afford. What we settle for. What we want. What we love. And what we hate.
If we look at shoes it says ‘she likes shoes, show her more shoes’. So she sees more shoes and every time she picks up her phone a little ad pops up with shoes, just like the ones she likes. She can’t help but look. These are shoes that persist. Coercing her until she consumes. Until late one night, when she wakes in terror from a dream where she is pursued by some unseen force, and seeks the solace of her iPhone, weirdly the very force that is relentlessly pursuing her, and she sees the shoes.
This sense of calm pervades her. These shoes keep appearing. It must be a sign. Shopping helps quiet her mind. The shoes soothe her. So she pops them in the virtual basket and hits the purchase button. When she wakes she has forgotten, but the machine has not. Three weeks later shoes arrive. Not the right size. Not the same colour. And nothing like the glowing lure that caught her at 2am one dark morning. They know her. They know her patterns. What it takes to change her mind. To lead her to the basket. They know what to show her. And when.
And they listen. So when she says, ‘I really need a holiday’, ads for holidays start populating her Facebook newsfeed. So she pauses a little longer on these images. Even clicks through on one of them. Her data is already there, and she slips through the virtual cracks. Her browse history is bigger than her. The algorithm knows her better than her psychologist. It knows how long she looks at something. It knows what she likes. What she hates. It knows what to show her. What to hide. It knows how to get her when she is locked safely inside her home.
The internet knows you better than you know yourself. It knows what emails you send. What websites you visit. What petitions you sign. What your political allegiances are. Who you follow. We’re being stalked.
In this world, there are vampires, but they don’t want your blood. The living dead feast on your data. And we continually surrender.
Maybe it’s time we had a right to be forgotten?
Mandy Nolan’s column has appeared in The Echo for almost 25 years. She is a writer, comedian and artist, and was the Greens cadidate at the past two elections.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
